We Heard You: Revising Draft Objectives for Regional Development Planning

The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission continues its work to prepare a regional development framework. The framework is intended as a resource that local communities can use to align their planning and development with shared regional goals and objectives. Last year, CARPC prepared draft goals and objectives for regional development and surveyed local government officials to gauge levels of support.

As reported previously, in response to CARPC’s survey,  local officials expressed strong support for the draft goals and objectives. At the same time, many survey respondents recommended that the objectives should more clearly relate to land use and development. They also said the objectives should articulate how success will be measured.

In response to this feedback, CARPC took another look at the three broad goals – for which there was strong agreement – to identify objectives that better connect those goals to land use and development. We asked: How could changes to land use and development advance each goal? What indicators might best measure progress towards objectives?

For example, how could land use and development help achieve the goal of fostering community resilience to climate change? Land use and development relates to climate resilience through transportation and building emissions as well as the tree canopy. Development that is compact, mixed, walkable, and transit-oriented reduces both house sizes and vehicle miles traveled, which in turn lower carbon emissions. This objective replaced the objective of increasing renewable energy use.

Applying this same approach to each goal, we identified the objectives pictured below:

Indicators are measurements to determine if we are achieving an objective. As such they help explain the intent of objectives and their connection to the broad goals.

For example, increasing the percent of development that is compact, mixed, walkable and transit oriented could be measured by the developed area per person and by vehicle miles traveled per person. The objective of increasing infiltration of precipitation and reducing stormwater runoff could be measured by the volume of stormwater runoff in each watershed.

Indicators are also used to apply an “equity lens” to the goals and objectives. For example, “housing production meets demand” could be measured by percent of households paying more than 30% of their income for housing. It could also be measured by the homeownership gap between White and Black households.

CARPC will continue to prepare and solicit input on indicators for each draft regional development objective. You can stay abreast of our work through our newsletter, website and social media.

As we continue our regional development planning, we will also work to address other comments from our goals survey:

• Make CARPC’s role and responsibility clear 
• Emphasize the importance and responsibilities of other agencies, Dane County communities, the business community, etc. in achieving the goals and objectives 
• Work with communities—especially villages and towns—to find ways for them to see themselves in the goals and objectives language.